Hershey Sues Former Top Official - Alleges Corporate Espionage

The Hershey Company is accusing a former top executive of committing corporate espionage, and it and wants a federal judge to order him to repay hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The target of Hershey’s lawsuit filed suit in U.S. Middle District Court is Doug Behrens, who is now chief customer officer of KIND LLC, a snack food maker and a competitor of Hershey.

The suit reads like the intro to a spy novel. more

Spybusters Tip #509: When someone resigns, is fired, or is laid-off... lock them out. This includes access cards, passwords, and email accounts.

This Month in Spycam News

UK - A school caretaker who installed a hidden camera in a toilet used by female teachers was sentenced to prison after the device recorded him committing the crime... When investigators searched Stupples' house, they discovered 76 videos and nearly 150,000 photos recorded from 50 separate instances of people using the toilet... Even as Stupples initially denied installing the hidden camera, his defense soon fell apart after prosecutors told the court how the accused was "very clearly visible" in one of the videos that showed him installing the device. more

US - Charges are expected to be filed Friday against a one-time registered sex offender suspected of mounting a small video camera inside a grocery store bathroom in Cathedral City. more

US - A Georgia army officer with high-ranking clearance has been arrested on charges of distribution of child pornography after an FBI agent caught him sharing nude pictures of a teenage relative captured via a spy camera. more

CA - A 56-year-old Owen Sound man is facing voyeurism charges after police allege he had been secretly filming a resident for months. Detectives with the Owen Sound Police uncovered a video camera that had been hidden in a fake heating vent in the washroom of an apartment... Police say the man worked maintenance for the building in which the incident occurred and allege the camera was installed in anticipation of a new tenant moving into the unit earlier this year. more

UK - A "deviant" voyeur secretly filmed a woman trying on a dress in a supermarket changing room - but was caught when her nine-year-old daughter saw what was happening. more

 

Walt Disney World Employee Charged with Illegal Recording

A Walt Disney World employee made an illegal audio recording of her interview with Disney security officials while being questioned about thefts at the theme parks, according to prosecutors.

Alicia Reese later shared that secret recording with Patrick Spikes, a former Disney employee who is accused of breaking into a theme park attraction and stealing props, deputies allege.

Prosecutors have charged Reese with an illegal interception of oral communications, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Reese and Spikes have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them. Reese, who had been an employee of ESPN Club restaurant at Disney’s Boardwalk Resort, was interviewed by two Disney security investigators in March about thefts from the company. more

Hot Wheels - Part II

Cypriot police have confiscated a van reportedly loaded with sophisticated surveillance equipment and have questioned its Israeli owner following media reports that the vehicle was being hired out to spy on people...

The police probe was initiated after local media highlighted an earlier Forbes report on the Israeli it identified as a former intelligence officer who showed off the $9 million van’s spying capabilities. more

69 Cops Get Body-Cam'ed - Clerk Gets Slammer

A former police records clerk in Southern California was sentenced to six years in jail Friday after he was charged with secretly recording dozens of coworkers as they used the bathroom. 

 
The sentencing for 29-year-old Sergio Nieto came after he pleaded no contest to dozens of invasion of privacy charges in October for spying on 69 coworkers (stop snickering) during his time working at the Long Beach Police Department’s downtown headquarters, the Long Beach Post reports. more

Southwest Airlines Flight Attendant Says Pilots Streamed Secret Bathroom Live Feed into Cockpit

A Phoenix-based flight attendant has sued Southwest Airlines for retaliation after she reported two pilots for live streaming secret lavatory video onto an iPad in the cockpit. 

Renee Steinaker says...she saw an iPad mounted to the jet’s windshield where she could see the pilot in the restroom. She says the co-pilot then told her that the cameras were a new “top secret security measure” which Steinmaker later determined was not true.

She claims that the pilots also left the aircraft unattended after landing the flight, and “left a loaded firearm unattended in the cockpit” which violates FAA regulations. more

The two pilots, both based near Southwest's Dallas headquarters, have denied the allegations in court documents. So has the airline, which dismissed the incident as an "inappropriate attempt at humor" in a statement. more

UPDATE:  A statement by the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association this week:

"Southwest Airlines has never placed cameras and never videoed anyone in any lavatory, and the pilots on Flight 1088 did not video anyone. The incident, which occurred over two years ago, was a poor attempt at humor where the pilot took a selfie video from the chest up, fully clothed, in the lavatory of a completely different airplane months before Flight 1088 and then replayed the exact same selfie video on his iPad when Ms. Steinaker came into the cockpit." more

Kettle Gets Called Black... or, Who's Zoomin' Who

Facebook launched a new front in the battle over encryption yesterday by suing the Israeli spyware firm NSO Group for allegedly hacking WhatsApp, its encrypted messaging service, and helping government customers snoop on about 1,400 victims...

The lawsuit marks the first time a messaging service has sued a spyware company for undermining its encryption and it could prompt a slew of suits against companies that have developed encryption workarounds bolstering governments' ability to spy on their citizens. more

Hospital Bathroom Video Voyeur had 1 Million Images

FL - Authorities have arrested a 41-year-old man who they say hid a small camera in bathrooms at three Florida medical facilities...

 

Police began investigating on Oct. 3 when a hidden camera was found inside an employee bathroom at St. Mary's Medical Center. 

 

Investigators found more than a million still and video images.

 

(The suspect) was a technician who took CT scans at the hospital and PET scans at medical facilities in Delray Beach and Boca Raton. more

Massive Corporate Espionage Attack: 'One million pages stolen'

Australian blood giant CSL has been rocked by an alleged corporate espionage attack, with a former "high level" employee accused of stealing tens of thousands of its documents - including trade secrets - in order to land a job at a key competitor...
CSL’s allegations are expected to reverberate through the highly competitive global drug making industry where trade secrets are the most prized possession of the companies. more

It's never this obvious.

Any pharmaceutical company without: 

• a robust Information Security Policy, 
• Recording in the Workplace Policy, 
• IT Compliance and Surveillance program, 
• regularly scheduled Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) inspections (with an Information Security Survey component)

is an easy target. Sadly, they won't even know they have had their brains picked until the damage is done.

CSL had protection measures in place. Thus, this discovery, and recovery. ~Kevin

Iranian President's Brother Claims Presidential Office was Bugged

Iran - After surrendering to serve his five-year term in prison, the younger brother of Iran’s president, Hossein Fereydoun claimed in a statement October 16 that the judge had convicted him based on eavesdropping on the presidential office.

A close advisor to Hassan Rouhani, Fereydoun did not name the body or persons responsible for the eavesdropping. Nevertheless, it is public knowledge that the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Intelligence Organization had been behind the lawsuit against him. more

LaFollette Councilwoman Indicted - 34 counts of Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance

TN - A LaFollette city councilwoman was indicted Thursday on wiretapping and official misconduct charges after a nearly eight-month investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation...

Campbell County District Attorney Jared Effler requested the TBI investigate after a recording device was found in the LaFollette City Hall Conference Room. Investigators later determined that Thompson was responsible for placing the device in the conference room.

On October 2^nd, the Campbell County Grand Jury returned indictments charging Thompson with 34 counts of Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance and two counts of Official Misconduct.  more

Cop Dropped for Electronic Eavesdropping - Nothing Further to Report

CA - The Roseville Police Department arrested an officer of Folsom’s police force Wednesday on suspicion of stalking, electronic eavesdropping and illegally using monitoring equipment...

The Roseville Police Department said it would not be releasing any further information regarding the investigation. more

Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article235979622.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article235979622.html#storylink=cpy

GPS Cyberstalking of Girlfriend Brings Indictment for Alleged Mobster

20 supposed wiseguys charged because one was possessive...

Joseph Amato's attempt to surveil his girlfriend by attaching a hidden GPS device to her car led authorities to surveil the alleged mobster, and ultimately to his indictment by a grand jury...

"In November 2016, a GPS tracking device was found on an MTA bus in Staten Island during a routine maintenance inspection: it had been hidden in an oil pan," the government's detention memo states. "In fact, Joseph Amato had purchased the device to place a girlfriend, identified herein as Jane Doe, under close surveillance and used the tracking device in an attempt to maintain control over her."...

...after Jane Doe discovered the GPS tracker on her car and removed it. The detention memo suggests she placed it on an MTA bus to thwart Amato's surveillance. more

U.S. Tour Guide Accused as Spy for China's Security Service

Watch Surveillance Video of Alleged Spy’s ‘Dead Drop’ at Hotel 

The U.S. arrested a California man accused of spying for China’s security service while working as a tour guide in the San Francisco area. U.S. agents secretly monitored drop-offs of packages at a hotel in Newark, California, that were traced to Peng, according to the complaint.

China’s Ministry of State Security schemed “to use an American citizen to remove classified security information to the PRC,” U.S. Attorney David Anderson said at a press conference.

Peng’s activities for the company where he worked, U.S. Tour and Travel, “went far beyond innocent sight-seeing,” Anderson said. more

Husband Ordered to Pay Almost $500K After Bugging Wife’s iPhone

The chairman of a performing arts school in Brooklyn has to pay an almost $500,000 verdict after he installed spying software in his estranged tobacco-heiress wife’s iPhone...

Jurors ordered Crocker Coulson, Brooklyn Music School chairman, to pay Anne Resnik $200,000 in compensatory damages, $200,000 in punitive damages, and $41,500 in statutory damages—or $100 for each of the 415 days he accessed her phone between 2012 and 2014.

Coulson was also ordered to pay $10,000 to Resnik’s mom, sister, and psychiatrist because he also intercepted their communications by spying on his wife. more

Whistle-Blower Charged with Industrial Espionage, or No Good Deed Goes...

A whistle-blower responsible for uncovering one of the biggest cases of tax avoidance in Germany is now prosecuted by Swiss authorities for industrial espionage...

Echart Seith is a lawyer that contributed to uncovering a Swiss bank mechanism that deprived German taxpayer of €12bn...

The 61-year old Seith has now been charged with industrial espionage and his case goes to trial on March 26. If found guilty, he is facing three-and-a-half years in prison. His testimony closed the tax loophole exploited by the Swiss banking industry in 2011...

The question at hand is how Seith got internal bank documents that allowed him to make the case against the Swiss banking system. more

Spycam Man Gets Life +150 Years — Skips on Castration

A workman accused of hiding cameras in several homes to spy on young girls was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison plus nearly 150 years by a judge who said she would have him castrated if the law allowed.

"We're here because of the choices that you and you alone made," Oklahoma County District Judge Amy Palumbo told Ryan Aaron Alden. "The devastation that you caused these families may never be known."

Alden, 39, of The Village, pleaded guilty in June to 28 felonies that included aggravated possession of obscene material involving minors, manufacturing child pornography and using video equipment in a clandestine manner.

Prosecutors alleged that Alden placed hidden cameras in the ceiling vents of four homes in Edmond, Nichols Hills and Oklahoma City. He reportedly placed the cameras in the bedrooms, bathrooms and closets of the homes while performing electrical work.

Alden was also accused of taking clandestine photos of girls in numerous public places, including gyms, schools, stores, mall changing rooms and a high school football game. more

AT&T Employees Took Bribes to Plant Malware

 One AT&T employee made $428,500.

AT&T employees took bribes to unlock millions of smartphones, and to install malware and unauthorized hardware on the company's network, the Department of Justice said yesterday...

The bribery scheme lasted from at least April 2012 until September 2017...

The two recruited AT&T employees by approaching them in private via telephone or Facebook messages. Employees who agreed, received lists of IMEI phone codes which they had to unlock for sums of money. more


Remember this survey from 2016? "One in five employees said they would sell their passwords."

The Point: Quarterly Technical Information Security Surveys mitigate this risk, and prove due diligence.

Google: Wi-Spy Case Cashed Out

Google is poised to pay a modest $13 million to end a 2010 privacy lawsuit that was once called the biggest U.S. wiretap case ever and threatened the internet giant with billions of dollars in damages.

The settlement would close the books on a scandal that was touched off by vehicles used by Google for its Street View mapping project. Cars and trucks scooped up emails, passwords and other personal information from unencrypted household Wi-Fi networks belonging to tens of millions of people all over the world. more

This Week in Spycam News

S. Korea - A South Korean TV star has resigned over claims he secretly filmed a woman’s lower body, in the country’s latest celebrity spycam scandal. Presenter Kim Sung-joon pleaded for ‘forgiveness’ after police allegedly caught him red-handed at a metro station in Seoul. more

ID - A Monteview man is facing a felony charge after he admitted to hiding a camera in a bathroom and videotaping people naked, according to court documents. He contacted deputies with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday, saying he wanted to turn himself in. During the phone call with a deputy, Roundy said he videotaped people taking showers at his home. He told the deputy he knew it was wrong and wanted to know if he could turn himself in on Friday. more

N. Ireland - An ex-children’s nurse accused of inventing a VIP paedophile gang told jurors he set up a hidden camera to film a boy using a toilet out of “curiosity” to see if he found sexual gratification in it. more

India - Days after a 27-year-old model had filed a case against a skin specialist popular among celebrities, accusing her of clandestinely installing a spy camera in her clinic at Lokhan Complex, Andheri West, and taking her pictures, the Oshiwara police arrested the doctor on Monday. more

FL - A Firestone Complete Auto Care employee was arrested Tuesday after recording at least two female customers using the restroom, the Port Orange Police Department... Police were notified of the recording after one of the victims found a recorder inside the women’s restroom. more

LA - The Jefferson Parish District Attorney has brought formal charges in the case of a camera in a restroom at Smoothie King headquarters in Metairie... He allegedly put the camera under a bathroom cabinet at the company's offices when he worked for Smoothie King. more

Canada - A 22-year-old man has been arrested after allegedly filming multiple women changing in a unisex change room at the Eaton Centre... The man then entered the change rooms and placed a homemade recording device on the floor between change room stalls and recorded numerous females changing. A woman occupying one of the change rooms noticed the device on the floor and immediately notified security and police. more

IN - A 20-year-old employee of an Indiana auto parts store has been charged with possession of child pornography and voyeurism after two 10-year-old girls uncovered a cell phone used to film in the company's staff bathroom... The filming device was discovered by the girls hidden behind a plunger and bottles of cleaning products. It had been placed slightly to the left of the toilet. One of the girls had just used the toilet and the other was partially undressed when they discovered the camera. more

Canada - A man pleaded guilty in a London courtroom Tuesday for secretly video taping his family and friends while they were using the bathroom. The court heard that the man set up a hidden camera in the bathroom of his home and recorded about 20 people between 2010 and 2017. He was charged by police after his daughter discovered the camera and told her mother. more

...and a major story from mid-June that slipped through the cracks...

New Zealand - Ninety women, 81 images, 30 hours of hidden camera video - the victims' stories... more

Spycam Facts:

• Most spycam attacks go undetected.
• A few are discovered... almost all by accident.
• Only a few of these are reported to the police.
• Only a few of these cases are solved.
• Only a few of these cases make the news.
• Only few of these make it to my desk.
• I only share a few of them with you.

Any organization with expectation of privacy areas needs to consider this to protect their employees, visitors and customers... and themselves, from forseeability law suits.

Time to read the next post and let it all sink in.